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What education are you talking about? What college degree did he get?
Please elaborate.

The emphasis on finding and describing "knowledge structures" that are somewhere "inside" the individual encourages us to overlook the fact that human cognition is always situated in a complex sociocultural world and cannot be unaffected by it. - Edwin Hutchinshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hutchins

I could give you a map, drawn up by a mad man, that was intended to get you lost or, at very least, had no means of getting you were you intended to go. YOU could look at that map and say, "Fantastic, this map is so beautiful. It's got a great legend and it's totally true to size. The proportions are so accurate, the landscape so detailed, only a genius could have crafted this map. I know I can use this map to get where I want to go because MY intentions are good."

I'm sorry. I've heard that argument so many times. "He left us this body of work and who cares what his intentions were, it's what we do with it that counts."

What if, no matter how good YOUR intentions are, the subject is thoroughly booby trapped? I believe there has been plenty of compelling evidence, on this board, that points to that as a very distinct probability.

On the other hand, there is equally compelling evidence in the Freezone and among the Independents that PCs and pre-OTs who were totally stalled or f*cked up in and by the Co$ have been rehabbed and are again making progress up the bridge outside of the Co$.

This seems to indicate that when some parts of "the body of work" are applied in certain ways, that people have actually gotten the results they expected and wanted.

I think basing a global conclusion on the "evidence" found on one single Internet board is very short-sighted. ESMB is a little village in a big big world. I doubt "the Final Answer" will be found here, but perhaps you could be more specific about what the "compelling evidence" you refer to actually is....?

What education are you talking about? What college degree did he get?
Please elaborate.

We also do not know much about his family other than what his parents did for a living at one point in their lives and that Hubbard did not missed them when they died.

Somebody screwed him up pretty good during his childhood, few people carry their childhood fantasies and delusion into adulthood with them, Hubbard carried them right to his grave, and few people hate children as much as Hubbard did, he didn't even like animals. He was not capable of unconditional love, anyone who received anything from Hubbard had to earn it and they allows paid too much for it.

On the other hand, there is equally compelling evidence in the Freezone and among the Independents that PCs and pre-OTs who were totally stalled or f*cked up in and by the Co$ have been rehabbed and are again making progress up the bridge outside of the Co$.

On the other hand, there is equally compelling evidence in the Freezone and among the Independents that PCs and pre-OTs who were totally stalled or f*cked up in and by the Co$ have been rehabbed and are again making progress up the bridge outside of the Co$.

Originally Posted by Infinite

DOX PLOX

I'd like to know what "making progress up the bridge" actually means, since Scientology was never intended to be anything more that a fantasy role playing game.

Does "making progress up the bridge" mean they are that much closer to full blown insanity?

Yes lurkers you are not alone, everyone thinks Scientology is creepy, it's not just you

The main problem I've seen with Dianetics is that it's not been used enough. It was released in 1950 and by 1951 it had disappeared. It finally came back in the '60's.

In 1978, the grade chart was revised putting Dianetics after the grades. Big mistake.

Forbidding Dianetics on Clears and OT's was an error. I've actually heard that people wanted to "unattest" to Clear so they could get more Dianetics.

But the biggest problem was using Dianetics to address the problems of the body only. The thetan has a time track also, and while a thetan doesn't have physical pain, it certainly does have attitudes and emotions. Any incident containing a "moment of shock" is a candidate for engram running. And no, a physical pain engram does not always have to underly it.

As for LRH himself, he tried to expand the C of S too fast. Anybody who even walked near an org's doors was pressured into buying more and buying it now. Many were ARC-broken by these crush sell techniques, including, I'm sure, many people on this BBS.

He sincerely believed that the world, if allowed to run its course, would just get worse and worse until we would all end up slaves in a fascist society. If we weren't killed first by the atomic war. Unless of course the C of S could stop it in time.

To expand fast, you need lots of money. He was always looking for ways to bring in more. The fastest way to do that is by "rip offs" of one kind or another. And it works. In the short term. Until people wise up.

He let the church be taken over. He had technology for detecting "plants", but it failed because the people who were supposed to be administering the checks were themselves plants.

He ended up in a "bubble", much the same as what America's President Obama talks about. He limited his contacts to a small number of insider staff, who controlled his comm lines and filtered what went in and out.

He failed to create "sub-heroes", people who would be recognized as real important (although, of course, less imortant than himself) and who would provide a clear line of succession.

Those of us who still believe in the basic purpose of Scientology will carry on. Somehow. Those who don't can say nothing or natter or whatever they wish. That's your right.

Helena

Nice post with many good points. However, I think your paragraph on his failure to create "sub -heroes" needs to be tweeked a bit. He did inadvertently create lots of "sub heroes". Prime examples are John Mac Master, Yvonne Jentzsch and Otto Roos. Other earlier sub heroes were the Kemps, Ray and Pam and the Halperns, who developed the TR's not to mention Dr. Winter, who wrote the forward to his original Dianetics book, John Campbell his publisher and Volney Matheison who developed the E-Meter. There is a list of many others as well. Mary Sue Hubbard, herself, was a created sub hero.

He had a line of succession established. Mary Sue Hubbard could have run the organizations and he hand picked David Mayo to be Senior C/S International and establish his own corporation, separate from C of S, so that he could run the tech division without being corrupted by other parts of the church. In the 50's he was grooming L Ron Hubbard, Jr. (Nibs) to be his heir apparent and in the 70's he was hoping that Quentin might assume that role. Diana figured as well in his line of succession. Perhaps for several years, Ken Urquhart may have figured into his succession plans as might have Captain Bill Robertson.

At the end of his life, he was off the major communication lines of his church and the communications into him were controlled by you know who. By this time his physical and mental capacities were seriously impaired and MSH and Mayo were now taboo as far as he was concerned.

In a last gasp effort to provide some succession, he named two relative nobodies, Pat and Annie Broeker as his successors. These people were loyal to him and took care of his "household" type of activities such as his housing, his food and his personal care. They had no real talents either in "Tech" nor "admin" but they were the only ones whom he had seen in his last years so he passed on the baton to them in a last ditch effort to preserve his legacy. Of course, DM was able to take them down with ease just a short time later.

What a sad and pathetic ending for a once "larger than life" and vibrant man. All he could do at the end was promote himself to "Admiral" and sail off into the Galaxy, leaving behind two "loyal officers", who were just ordinary people with no special skills, to run his empire.

Lakey

"I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you've earned but not greed to want to take someone else's money."
-Thomas Sowell

I'd like to know what "making progress up the bridge" actually means, since Scientology was never intended to be anything more that a fantasy role playing game.

Does "making progress up the bridge" mean they are that much closer to full blown insanity?

For you, it would mean whatever it means to you.

For them, it means they feel they are again getting what they came into scientology to get, whereas they were not getting it in the Co$ environment.
If you want to know what that might be, get yourself a copy of an older Grade Chart and look it over in some detail.

Beyond that, why not ask them yourself? I could be telling you any manner of lies and you would have no way of knowing, right?

I could give you a map, drawn up by a mad man, that was intended to get you lost or, at very least, had no means of getting you were you intended to go. YOU could look at that map and say, "Fantastic, this map is so beautiful. It's got a great legend and it's totally true to size. The proportions are so accurate, the landscape so detailed, only a genius could have crafted this map. I know I can use this map to get where I want to go because MY intentions are good."

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." It takes more than good intentions to get anywhere.

As Korzybski said, "The map is not the territory."

Just ask the people who were in the Donner party in 1846:

DONNER PASS
"The pass received its name, however, from another group of California-bound emigrants. In early November 1846, the Donner Party found the route blocked by snow and was forced to spend the winter on the eastern side of the mountains. Of the 81 emigrants, only 45 survived to reach California;[2] some of them are alleged to have resorted to cannibalism to survive."

Wkipedia.

But good intentions are important, too. The Grade Chart is a record after-the-fact. I think there are few who would argue that ARC Straighwire, the Grades 0-IV, Dianetics, Power and Power-plus, Clear, and OT1 and OTII are boob-trapped and misleading. There are too many who have done them and gone just where they were led to believe they would go, at least back in the 1960s and 1970s. Beyond those the picture seems to be more murky.

That said, I always saw scientology as a process, not as a fixed map leading to a fixed destination.

For one thing, each person is an individual and becomes more individual as s/he goes along applying the methodology.

"To tell you something you don't already know is hard
for in your giant laughter strides open
and the road you carry you lay before you."

You end up where you've always been, only this time you are fully aware and know it. And can then move on or be anywhere you want to be, from then on, forever.

And that's a unique and individual "place" for each person.

Or as the Grateful Dead had it, "And if you go, no-one may follow, that path is for your steps alone."

That's why it is silly to talk about "double-blind studies" and all that claptrap that pertains to MEST. It's not principally about MEST.